How To: Cut Deals With Pirates, Start Classroom Revolts

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How To: Cut Deals With Pirates, Start Classroom Revolts

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1001xArPVk

Instead of midterms and final exams, we'd stage an insurrection.

That was of the notions behind my ersatz "Rogue Diplomacy" class at WIRED University, a mock guide to the circulum for the 21st century. The piece, which looked at "practicing statecraft without states," went through a thousand edits before it finally ran. (The stories in these magazine packages always do.) I thought it'd be fun for Danger Room readers to see the original draft.

Warning: Some of the ideas below are half-baked. Some of the phrases are hackneyed. (I've never been a professor, after all. And sometimes my initial drafts suck, as my editors will tell you.) But the core concepts are still kind of cool – like trading tests for rebellions.

Forget the cultural attaches, the cocktail parties, and the charges d'affaires. These days, the game of international power means dealing with all kinds of players that don't have embassy mixers – or embassies at all. From tribal insurgents to multinational corporations, private charities to pirate gangs, religious movements to armies-for-hire, there are groups now competing with (and sometimes eclipsing) the nation-states in which they reside. Without capitols and without traditional political constituencies, they can't be persuaded or deterred in the same way countries can.

But that doesn't mean diplomacy is dead; quite the opposite. These groups have shareholders and tribal allies that they have to answer to. They have religious and economic and political interests to address. They have cultures that can be understood.

We'll examine how to reach these post-state entities – and some post-corporeal ones, as well. Some of the most potent actors on the international stage are now online: internet dissidents, hacker collectives, Google itself. Their importance will only grow as the world becomes more plugged-in.

It'd be tempting to call this a Brave New World, wholly separated from what came before. But step back and consider America's founding story: a loose collection of colonial insurgents, competing against tribes and against a traditional power's mercenaries. And once those guerrillas triumphed and formed a government, they built a navy, and launched a war against Islamists-turned-pirates two oceans away.

PART ONE: The Rise and Fall (and Rise and Fall) of the Nation-State

Power traditionally oscillates between presidents and warlords, between Caesars and Medicis. We'll see how nation-states gain authority – and how that authority gets taken away – in the 16th Century Caribbean, 18th Century America, and 20th Century Middle East.

Today's insurgents and gangs may seem like simple thugs. They're anything but. These groups provide people with a sense of community. They offer money and education when the government can't. They establish a sense of order – even if they were the ones starting the chaos in the first place. Looking at the examples of Iraq, the Straits of Malacca, and South-Central L.A., we'll identify these groups' power centers, their constituents, and their appeal. Then we'll learn what it takes to negotiate, compete, co-opt, and form alliances with these local powers.

Instead of a midterm exam, the class will divide into two groups. Group A will storm Wired University's San Francisco campus, convincing students to abandon their coursework. Group B will try to undercut Group A. They may offer the students more compelling reasons to stay. They may try to infiltrate the insurgents, and split them into warring factions. Targeted killings are not allowed, and will result in an automatic failure.

These days, local insurrections may not pose the most potent threats to nation-states. Globally-connected diasporas, religious extremists, criminal enterprises, and corporations are gathering power – without holding territory in meatspace. Al Qaeda went from a terrorist collective with a physical headquarters to an ideology with an online propaganda machine. China treats Google as a competitor on par with nation-states.

We'll find out how these groups organize and attract followers and undermine state power. For a final project, the class will split again into insurgents and counterinsurgents. Except this time, the two groups will have to inspire students at some other school to rebel or not. That's how strong their online powers of persuasion will have to be.